This invention relates to a sorting device receiving copy sheets from a copy machine and more particularly to a sorting device wherein one or more pages may be manually inserted into the sorter and placed in proper sequence with the copy sheets from the copy machine.
In general, the number of the copy sheets which can be sorted by a sorting device is limited by the number of the sheet storing bins provided in the sorting device. The number of copy sheets required to be sorted is, however, different depending on the requirements of the user, and, therefore, sorting devices are normally so constructed that they may be connected serially to one another in any number of sorters as required.
On the other hand, when collation of the copy sheets for each page of the original manuscript has been completed and piles or bundles of copy sheets comprising the collated sheets are provided in a required quantity, it may often be desired that for each pile or bundle, covers be applied or blank or colored pages may be inserted as partitions. In the past, the operator of the copy machine has typically been manually inserting said covers or partitions one by one directly into each bin of the sorting device before or after collation of the copy sheets by the sorting device. Since this work is manual, it has been rather troublesome. Besides, a wrong distribution may easily be caused as a cover or partition might be distributed to the wrong bin by, for example, skipping over the correct bin, or two covers may be placed inadvertently into one bin. Also the above manual work has been time consuming. Particularly in such cases that collation of a large number of copy sheets is required, in other words, when a number of sorting devices are connected serially together, the operator has to move away from the copy machine from time to time for this manual distribution of covers or partitions in the appropriate sorter, which can increase the possibility of error. Therefore, the operator often had to count the number of covers or partitions in advance before inserting them in each bin, or ascertain the number of covers which have been distributed in the bins.